February 12, 1984 (Morning)Can a man in love with his money enter into the Kingdom of God? "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle" (Mt. 19:24).
Bethlehem Baptist Church
John Piper, Pastor
Creation, Fall, Redemption and the Holy Spirit
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.' The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus said to him, "How can this be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel and yet do not understand this?"(John 3:1-10)
- Can the Ethiopian change his skin
- or the leopard his spots?
- Then also you can do good
- who are accustomed to do evil.
(Jer. 13:23)
Can the natural man welcome the things of the
Spirit of God? "They are foolishness to him and he is not
able to comprehend them, because they are spiritually assessed"
(1 Cor. 2:14).
Can the human mind, as it comes into being
and grows by merely natural processes, please God? "The
mindset of the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to
God's law, indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot
please God" (Rom. 8:7-8).
Can a man enter a second time into his mother's
womb and be born when he is old? Do you feel the shock of what
Jesus was requiring of Nicodemus when he said, "You must
be born again" (John 3:7)? It is impossible for a man to
cause himself to be born again. We can't change the color of
our skin. A leopard can't change his spots. A camel can't go
through the eye of a needle. A natural man can't welcome spiritual
things. The mindset of fallen humanity can't please God'. And
old men can't be born.
To which we quickly answer (because we know
the Bible), but God can change the color of our skin and
the spots of a leopard. God can make a camel fit through
a needle's eye. God can turn natural people into spiritual
people who love the things of the Spirit. And God can
cause people to be born again by the Holy Spirit. Yes. But perhaps
we say it too quickly. Perhaps we ought to sit stunned for seven
days with torn clothes and dust on our head in utter silence like
Job and his three friends. Stunned that no one will enter the
Kingdom of God unless he is born twice, not just once -- born
by a power not his own that blows like wind according to its own
will. Stunned that we are like shipwrecked sailors stranded on
a raft with a makeshift sail made out of a shirt, utterly and
absolutely lost -- unless (we know not how!) the wind blows.
We need to stop, and let ourselves feel the plight that Jesus
said Nicodemus was in. He said Nicodemus was in a room where
all the door handles were too high for him to reach. And then
he said, "Come out. You must come out if you want to enter
into the Kingdom of God."
Has it ever struck you as strange that before
Nicodemus can even ask a question or state his reason for coming,
Jesus declares the necessity of being born again. The context
is important here. Notice in John 2:23 that "Jesus was at
the Passover in Jerusalem and many believed in his name when they
saw the signs which he did." Then notice in 3:2 what
Nicodemus says when he comes to Jesus, "Rabbi, we know that
you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs
that you do unless God is with him." In other words, Nicodemus
is among the number in 2:23 who are impressed enough with his
miracles to believe that he is somehow from God. This
is very encouraging.
But then John 2:24-25 set the stage for Jesus'
less than enthusiastic response to Nicodemus' affirmation of faith.
"But Jesus did not entrust himself to them [those who "believed"
in him as a sign-worker], because he knew all men and needed no
one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man."
What does this mean? What did Jesus know about these so-called
believers? What did he see in them that caused him to hold back
and not give himself fully to them?
The answer is given in the next verses as one
of these "believers" comes to Jesus by night, Nicodemus.
What did Jesus know about the Nicodemus-types who only believed
in Jesus as a wonder-worker? He knew that they were not born
again. So the reason Jesus doesn't even need to wait for Nicodemus
to ask a question is, as 2:25 says, "he knew what
was in man." So what we learn in John 3:3-10 is Jesus' view
of man's condition, Jesus' view of "what is in man,"
and the remedy for that condition. It is not flattering to hear
but it is utterly essential. Let's talk briefly about these two
things: man's condition and God's remedy, as Jesus sees them.
Verse 6 is the main statement about the human
condition: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh and
that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." I would paraphrase
it like this: when you are conceived and born by human parents
you share in a human nature; and when you are conceived and born
by the divine Spirit you share in his divine nature. Your first
birth makes you alive to human life. Your second birth makes
you alive to spiritual life. Our first birth knits out hearts
affectionately to our earthly father. Our second birth knits
our hearts affectionately to our heavenly Father. Our first birth
give us an appetite for warm milk and a cool reputation and hot
sex. Our second birth gives us an appetite for God. Our first
birth imparts a natural impulse to save our lives. Our second
birth imparts a supernatural impulse to lose our lives for Christ's
sake.
Let's ponder for a few moments Jesus' view
of people who have not been born again (the unregenerate), people
who have not been born of the Spirit but only by their parents.
Four things: 1) They are flesh. Verse 6: "That which is
born of the flesh is flesh." This means that people by nature
are merely human and utterly devoid of the Holy Spirit. Jude
19 says, "It is these who set up divisions, natural people
devoid of the Spirit." Flesh in John 3:6 refers to human
nature out of touch with God. In Romans 7:18 Paul describes the
moral condition of such human nature like this: "I know that
no good thing dwells within me, that is in my flesh." The
flesh is human nature cut off from the Spirit of God. When human
nature, with all its drives and desires and longings and needs
is cut off from the all-satisfying God, the result is "no
good thing": utter moral corruption, total depravity. Gal.
5:19-21, "Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality,
impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy,
anger, selfishness, dissension, factiousness, envy, drunkenness,
carousing, and the like."
Jesus had an extraordinarily low view of human
nature as it exists in the world apart from new birth. Note well!
He speaks in general terms not just about some bad group. "That
which is born of the flesh is flesh." All people everywhere
are cut off from God; in them is no good thing; the byways of
their hearts are like a great subterranean sewer system dumping
sewage into the Mississippi River. "What comes out of the
mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a man.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery,
fornication, theft, false witness, slander" (Mt. 15:18-19).
Apart from being born again by the Holy Spirit, human nature,
no matter where you find it, is totally depraved; there is no
moral good in it. It may have the capacity to compose symphonies
or to maneuver in space with computerized jet packs, but these
achievements are of no moral value in God's sight. Wherever
man does not humbly rely on God for power, the product of his
brain is an idol (Rom. 14:23). Believing what Jesus believes
about the human heart we ought to be astonished that Minneapolis
is anything more than a giant waste disposal site for the toxic
emissions of human nature. It is God's sovereign grace ("common
grace" as the theologians say) that keeps the lid on the
volcano of evil in people who are not born again. So the first
thing Jesus says about the human condition apart from new birth
by the Spirit is that all people are simply flesh, devoid of the
Holy Spirit, totally depraved.
The second thing he says is that all men are
dead. Our first birth gives life to our flesh -- we breathe,
we desire, we think. But when Jesus adds, "That which is
born of the Spirit is spirit," he implies that until then
we are spiritually dead. A birth brings forth life. Prior to
our new birth we are spiritually lifeless.
The Bible teaches that things were not always
like this. When God created man, he created more than mere flesh,
and he created more than walking dead men. Genesis 2:7 says,
"The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a
living being." Then God put man in the garden with every
good thing for his enjoyment and warned him that self-reliant
rebellion would bring death: "In the day that you eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall die."
But man did eat, and his rebellion and death have been the mark
of his posterity to this day (Rom. 5:12,17). Before the Fall
man enjoyed the indwelling presence of God's Spirit giving him
spiritual life and unity with God. But after man's rebellion
the Spirit withdrew from man and left him in a spiritually dead
condition, cut off from God, with a heart of stone toward God.
Ever since that day God's work has been the redemption of a new
humanity. And in John 3 Jesus teaches us that God is gathering
a new humanity by bringing people back from spiritual death.
The Kingdom of God is the reign of God over the new people of
God who have been born of the Spirit into newness of life: "Unless
one is born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God."
That is the third thing Jesus says about the
condition of people who are not born again: since they are mere
flesh, devoid of the Spirit, and since they are dead in sin like
a stone toward God, therefore they will not enter the Kingdom
of God. This means that they will not inherit eternal life
(3:16) and that the wrath of God rests upon them (3:36; cf. Eph.
2:3). These must have been terrifying words to Nicodemus. Picture
the scene. Nicodemus has watched Jesus in Jerusalem. He has
seen a man of incomparable power work miracles and a man of incomparable
love help the needy. He is drawn to this man and seeks him out
at night and says: Teacher, I am persuaded that you are from God.
And before Nicodemus can take another breath Jesus says with
very unsentimental compassion: Nicodemus, people who aren't born
again go to hell.
The fact that Jesus says all this to Nicodemus
the Pharisee reveals the fourth thing about Jesus' view of
man apart from the Spirit. There is a world of difference between
religion and new life in the Holy Spirit. You can see Jesus shaking
his head in verse 10: "Are you a teacher in Israel and yet
you do not understand this?" Yes, it is possible to be an
usher, a trustee, a deacon, a Sunday School teacher, a seminary
professor and a pastor and not be born again. Religious crowds
in Jerusalem believed on Jesus as a sign-worker, but he would
not give himself to them because he knew that beneath the religious
veneer there was no new birth, no spiritual life. They had not
been born of the Spirit. They were only flesh. And all their
religion was the work of the flesh.
In summary, Jesus looks out over fallen humanity
and knows "what is in them." They are people, 1) who
are merely flesh, in whom dwells no moral good, 2) who are dead
in sin, destitute of spiritual life with no receptivity to God,
3) who are therefore excluded from God's Kingdom and eternal life
and 4) who often deceive themselves that all is well by being
religious people and working in the church.
Now what? Someone should ask, "Why do
you say all this? What do you expect to accomplish by telling
us such things? If I am just flesh, devoid of God's Spirit, with
no moral good, if I am dead in sin and a stone toward God, if
I am shut out of God's kingdom and my heart is so deceptive I
use religion as a front for my deadness, what do you expect me
to do? I'm so damned depraved I can't do anything good. What
do you expect of me?"
For the person who asks that question there
is great hope. Because the response I expect is desperation.
I don't expect anybody to be born again who hears the gospel
but never feels a sense of desperation. Why else would Jesus
say to Nicodemus: You must be born again by the Spirit, and then
say in verse 8, "The Spirit -- the wind -- blows where it
wills, you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it
comes or whither it goes, so it is with everyone who is born of
the Spirit." The wind is free. It obeys its own secret laws
not ours. When it blows the sailors are glad. When it does not
they are desperate. Surely this verse is meant to show us that
we are utterly at the mercy of the free and sovereign Spirit of
God. He blows where he wills. What do I expect when I proclaim
this truth? A sense of utter helplessness and desperation. Is
it an accident that the last words we hear from Nicodemus are
the bewildered, "How can this be?" (v. 9).
You see, the new birth is not your own doing.
It is the sovereign, free, supernatural work of the Holy Spirit
brooding as Creator over your soul, raising you from the dead,
making you a new creature, with a heart that trusts and loves
Jesus. You do not initiate your new birth any more than
Lazarus initiated his resurrection. The resurrection of Lazarus
to new life was owing to one thing: the word of Jesus Christ
-- "Come Forth!"
Therefore Peter says to Christians (1 Pt. 1:23-25):
"You have been born again... through the living and abiding
word of God … the gospel which was preached to you."
Ever since Adam and Eve God has been rescuing people from death.
And the way he has always done it and continues to do it is by
the power of his Spirit and the proclamation of his Word.
If you are alive in Christ you have been born anew by his Spirit
through his Word. Paul says (1 Thess. 1:5), "Our gospel
came to you not only in word but also in power and in the Holy
Spirit." And again (in 1 Cor. 2:4), "My words and my
proclamation were not in persuasive words of wisdom but in the
demonstration of the Spirit and power."
Sometimes, to my misery, the gospel misfires
in the mouth of a weak and worldly preacher. But when the Holy
Spirit is upon the message there is an explosion of life. The
Word and the Spirit quicken dead hearts and bring forth faith.
The gospel is preached and God the Creator Spirit says, "Let
there be life." And the eyes of the heart are opened and
a child is born and the cries of desperation and bewilderment
give way to cooing and sucking at the breast of the Spirit.
I close with three brief applications to our
life today.